Records Survive as Inflation Cools, Shoppers Pull Back

The week of August 10 to 16, 2026 was an inflation week that held the tape at records and then let the consumer blink. July CPI and PPI landed tame, and the S&P 500 printed its first close above 7,800 on Thursday before slipping 0.2 percent Friday to 7,785.76, a third straight weekly gain of about 0.4 percent. This recap is published on a Sunday, when traditional markets are closed. Stock, gold and oil figures below are Friday's closing prints (August 14) and those markets reopen Monday, while Bitcoin and Ether are shown at their live Sunday levels. See Saturday's weekly markets roundup. This is not a recommendation.

Weekly Scorecard: Records Hold After a Soft Friday

Equities digested a full inflation week at a record. At Friday's cash close the S&P 500 stood at 7,785.76, down 0.2 percent on the day and up about 0.4 percent on the week from the prior Friday's 7,757.64 record. The Nasdaq Composite finished at 26,729.16, up about 0.1 percent on the week. The Dow closed at 53,732.41, about 0.6 percent lower on the week, the laggard after Cisco's AI-margin warning. Thursday's first finish above 7,800 at a record 7,798.99 was the week's high-water mark. Energy led S&P sectors by roughly 7 percent as Hormuz headlines kept crude bid. Rate markets priced roughly a 31 percent chance of a September hike, down from about 55 percent the prior week. All of those equity figures are Friday closes. US cash markets are shut until Monday.

Biggest Movers of the Week

No name captured the week's architecture like Nvidia. On Monday the chipmaker signed memorandums of understanding with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to stand up compute-financing platforms aimed at mobilising more than 500 billion dollars of third-party capital for AI factories. Jensen Huang told CNBC the chips are an "investable asset." The stock still slipped near 3 percent after a Financial Times leak framed the package as a funding scramble. We flagged the leak in the August 11 morning analysis.

The AI-earnings gauntlet the week-ahead note mapped played out as a split screen. CoreWeave reported 2.58 billion dollars of second-quarter revenue, up 112 percent, a 104 billion dollar backlog, and raised full-year guidance. The shares jumped about 15 to 18 percent. Cisco beat on 17.25 billion dollars of revenue and still fell as much as 8.8 percent on a softer AI-revenue forecast. Applied Materials posted record revenue and still dropped about 5 percent. At records, a beat is only the starting point. Reddit will join the S&P 500 on Tuesday, August 18, replacing AvalonBay Communities, and jumped about 11 to 13 percent on Friday. Tesla and Micron led Thursday; Cava surged around 16 percent; Globant slumped about 15 percent on a guide cut.

Crypto: A Goldman Cheque and a Canceled Vote

Digital-asset prices did almost nothing interesting. The stories did. Bitcoin is near 62,990 dollars live on Sunday, down about 2.8 percent from a week ago and boxed under 64,000 through both CPI and PPI. Ether holds near 1,879 dollars live, down about 1.6 percent on the week. Those are 24/7 prints as of 09:04 UTC. Live levels sit on the ThriveInMarkets homepage.

Wednesday's deal was the largest crypto-adjacent cheque of the week. Goldman Sachs agreed to acquire NEOS Investments for up to 2.25 billion dollars, picking up the Bitcoin High Income ETF (BTCI), plus XBCI and NEHI. Goldman is not buying a token. It is buying the wrapper that turns bitcoin and ether into a monthly-income product. We covered the print in the August 13 morning analysis. Fidelity filed to let its Ethereum Fund (FETH) stake up to 100 percent of its ether and pay quarterly cash rewards.

The SEC had scheduled a Friday open meeting to propose "Regulation Crypto". Late Thursday the meeting was canceled with no new date. The Clarity Act was already parked, with a cloture vote now spoken of for September 15. Into that vacuum, Grayscale withdrew Cardano, Hedera and Polkadot ETF filings. Solana pointed its Alpenglow upgrade to October. Bullish trigger for Bitcoin: a clean reclaim of 64,000 dollars. Bearish trigger: a slip through this week's 62,800 shelf. These are reference points, not instructions.

Macro and Geopolitics: Inflation Cools, Shoppers Blink, Oil Stays Bid

Macro did what the Monday morning note said it would: it set the rate path, then handed the week back to single names. July CPI rose 0.1 percent on the month and 3.4 percent year over year; core held at 2.5 percent. July PPI was unchanged. That pair pulled September hike odds toward the low 30s. Then the consumer blinked. As scored in the Friday evening review, July retail sales fell 0.6 percent, the first drop in nine months, and Michigan sentiment slumped to 51.0 from 55.2. Combined with last week's 23,000-job July loss, the data give Chair Kevin Warsh cover to hold at the September 15 to 16 meeting. They also say the spending engine is no longer a free lunch. Warsh called the July meeting a "good family fight" after three hike dissents, a split Wednesday's minutes will unpack.

Spot gold closed Friday near 4,376 dollars, up about 0.9 percent on the week after tagging 4,449 dollars and reversing. West Texas Intermediate settled Friday at 82.40 dollars, up about 5.4 percent on the week from 78.20, as Washington kept an indefinite Iran naval blockade on the table. Gold and oil figures are Friday closes. Those markets reopen Monday.

The Week Ahead: Minutes, Retail Earnings and Reddit

The inflation week is over. Next week is about whether the consumer, the index, and Hormuz cooperate. US cash markets reopen Monday. These are scenarios for next week, not instructions to act on any asset:

• Monday, August 17: Empire State manufacturing and the NAHB housing index open a light US data week.
• Tuesday, August 18: Reddit joins the S&P 500 before the open. The same morning, Home Depot reports, the first mega-retail read on whether July's 0.6 percent sales drop was a one-month payback.
• Wednesday, August 19: the FOMC minutes from the July meeting, where three officials dissented in favour of a hike. Target and Lowe's report the same day.
• Thursday and Friday: Walmart reports Thursday. Friday brings the flash August PMIs. Hormuz remains the oil wildcard. Warsh's first Jackson Hole keynote is August 27 to 29. The FOMC is September 15 to 16.

In a soft-consumer path, Home Depot and Walmart confirm Friday's miss and put 7,757.64 back in play. In a hold-the-line path, July reads as a one-month payback and the S&P leans back toward 7,798.99. In a hawkish-minutes path, Wednesday revives the three-dissent hike story. Traders watching 7,798.99 as the bullish trigger, 7,757.64 as the bearish trigger, and a break of 7,728 as invalidation of the weekly-gain tone. These are observations of the price structure, not instructions.

ThriveInMarkets publishes market commentary for general information only and does not provide personal investment advice. Equity, gold and WTI figures are Friday closes for August 14, 2026 and reopen Monday. Bitcoin and Ether are live as of 09:04 UTC on August 16, 2026. Levels cited are observations of what the market is watching, not instructions to buy or sell any asset.